For better or worse, the Broadcast Film Critics Association has, of late, been frequently cited for its Oscar prognosticative prowess. Of course, it’s a pointless tidbit in the grand scheme and no one should be looking at organizations like this to see how accurate they might be on that front (even if this one in particular, of which I am a member, makes it a point every year to remind you).
Having said that, I don’t think anyone would be shocked in the slightest if the BFCA’s list of 10 Best Picture nominees (see below) matches the Academy’s 10-for-10 this year. There is just one film on the list that ever felt truly questionable to me at some point along the way, and even that seems more and more locked in as latter-year hopefuls fail to catch expected fire.
“Inglourious Basterds” and “Nine” led the way with 10 nominations each, a new record. However, given the addition of below the line categories this year, it’s worth noting that their tallies wouldn’t have been so robust in the past. Quentin Tarantino’s film would have landed five nominations if it was business as usual. “Nine” would have landed three. And “Up in the Air” would have led the field.
Alas, in an increasing effort to, on the surface, lend more credence to other aspects of the filmmaking process, but in reality, raise the profile of the organization via its awards show, this year’s slate reads, down the line, like a preview of the Oscars, like it or not.
Of course, there are some elements that stand out as somewhat singular. The acting and directing categories each have six nominees, making room for contenders that may have trouble crossing over to the AMPAS list. Some inspired choices in the adapted screenplay field could represent dark horse contenders for Oscar. But the craft categories read like a soft lob right down the middle.
Some in the BFCA, I think, know what they’re looking for in these fields. A great many, I suspect, do not.
In any case, this conservative slate, which some might call uneventful, is indicative of the safe consensus as we see it now. Anything can change in the next four weeks as other contenders try to find corners of the Academy membership to usher their cause along. There is always a Michael Shannon lurking about.
I’m happy to see “The Lovely Bones” properly recognized in a few fields, especially Saoirse Ronan’s bid for lead actress. (She should walk away with the young actor/actress award, but we’ll see.) I’m also pleased Marion Cotillard was nominated in supporting, where she belongs, and that “District 9” has a presence.
But it’s a shame two of the most shrill performances of the year, from Jae Head and Kodi Smit-McPhee, were recognized in the young actor/actress category, autopilot nominations that should have gone to more notable work from Édgar Flores, Jennifer Lawrence or, what could have been a truly inspired choice, Jordan Nagai.
The nominees for the 15th annual Critics’ Choice Movie Awards (note the slight change in moniker) are…
Best Picture
“Avatar”
“An Education”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Invictus”
“Nine”
“Precious”
“A Serious Man”
“Up”
“Up in the Air”
Best Directing
Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
James Cameron, “Avatar”
Lee Daniels, “Precious”
Clint Eastwood, “Invictus”
Jason Reitman, “Up in the Air”
Quentin Tarantino, “Inglourious Basterds”
Best Actor
Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
George Clooney, “Up in the Air”
Colin Firth, “A Single Man”
Morgan Freeman, “Invictus”
Viggo Mortensen, “The Road”
Jeremy Renner, “The Hurt Locker”
Best Actress
Emily Blunt, “The Young Victoria”
Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”
Carey Mulligan, “An Education”
Saoirse Ronan, “The Lovely Bones”
Gabourey Sidibe, “Precious”
Meryl Streep, “Julie & Julia”
Best Supporting Actor
Matt Damon, “Invictus”
Woody Harrelson, “The Messenger”
Christian McKay, “Me and Orson Welles”
Alfred Molina, “An Education”
Stanley Tucci, “The Lovely Bones”
Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
Best Supporting Actress
Marion Cotillard, “Nine”
Vera Farmiga, “Up in the Air”
Anna Kendrick, “Up in the Air”
Mo’Nique, “Precious”
Julianne Moore, “A Single Man”
Samantha Morton, “The Messenger”
Best Young Actor/Actress
Jae Head, “The Blind Side”
Bailee Madison, “Brothers”
Max Records, “Where the Wild Things Are”
Saoirse Ronan, “The Lovely Bones”
Kodi Smit-McPhee, “The Road”
Best Acting Ensemble
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Nine”
“Precious”
“Star Trek”
“Up in the Air”
Best Adapted Screenplay
“District 9”
“An Education”
“Fantastic Mr. Fox”
“Precious
“A Single Man”
“Up in the Air”
Best Original Screenplay
“(500) Days of Summer”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“A Serious Man”
“Up”
Best Animated Feature
“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”
“Coraline”
“Fantastic Mr. Fox”
“The Princess and the Frog”
“Up”
Best Art Direction
“Avatar”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“The Lovely Bones”
“Nine”
“A Single Man”
Best Cinematography
“Avatar”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“The Lovely Bones”
“Nine”
Best Costume Design
“Bright Star”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Nine”
“Where the Wild Things Are”
“The Young Victoria”
Best Editing
“Avatar”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Nine”
“Up in the Air”
Best Makeup
“Avatar”
“District 9”
“Nine”
“The Road”
“Star Trek”
Best Score
“The Informant!”
“The Princess and the Frog”
“Sherlock Holmes”
“Up”
“Where the Wild Things Are”
Best Song
“The Weary Kind” from “Crazy Heart”
“(I Want To) Come Home” from “Everybody’s Fine”
“Cinema Italiano” from “Nine”
“Almost There” from “The Princess and the Frog”
“All is Love” from “Where the Wild Things Are”
Best Sound
“Avatar”
“District 9”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Nine”
“Star Trek”
Best Visual Effects
“2012”
“Avatar”
“District 9”
“The Lovely Bones”
“Star Trek”
Best Action Movie
“Avatar”
“District 9”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Star Trek”
Best Comedy
“(500) Days of Summer”
“The Hangover”
“It’s Complicated”
“The Proposal”
“Zombieland”
Best Picture Made for Television
“Gifted Hands”
“Grey Gardens”
“Into the Storm”
“Taking Chance”
Best Foreign Language Film
“Broken Embraces”
“Coco Before Chanel”
“Red Cliff”
“Sin Nombre”
“The White Ribbon”
Best Documentary Feature
“Anvil!: The Story of Anvil”
“Capitalism: A Love Story”
“The Cove”
“Food, Inc.”
“Michael Jackson’s This Is It”
The Critics’ Choice Movie Awards will be held Friday, January 15, 2010 at 9:00pm PST and will be broadcast live on VH1.
Comments
52 responses to “‘Basterds,’ ‘Nine’ lead the pack with BFCA”
That’s it – Basterds and Avatar are getting in!
Cameron too gets in for directing.
Oh… The Lovely Bones will not sniff any Oscars.
Precious missing Screenplay is interesting. But I hate 6 nominees, always hated it when the globes picked 6 or even 7 in some categories. Its like the BFCA not only wants to predict the Oscars, they want a buffer too so that they can claim we got all 5 right.
Avatar for cinematography is still on the line. What photography are people talking about here? Why not make animated films too eligible for cinematography?
And Avatar for make-up?????
And I could never ever classify Inglorious Bastards as an action movie.
But true, these read like the latest batch of predictions rather than actual voted upon nominees. I’m sure I can pick most winners right now easy! But these are far from your personal choices. We’ll get an insight soon when you release your Top 10.
Wow, that documentary lineup is feeble. Looks like some voters nominated the only five docs they’d heard of this year.
And Blunt for Best Actress? How many ballots did Pete Hammond have? ;)
On the plus side, I’m happy to see Samantha Morton get in. (I think she’ll nab an Oscar nod too.) The longer “The Messenger” lingers with me, the more I think hers is the most interesting of its three excellent performances.
Emily Blunt? Jesus… what movies are these critics watching when Emily Blunt gets in for a snooze of a performance and Tilda Swinton can’t even sniff the fumes of a failed Best Actress bid.
I’m thinking Marion Cotillard will end up a nominee for “Nine”, but in a reverse of Kate Winslet last year, will be nominated in Supporting Actress as opposed to Cruz/Dench.
This really is just like looking at a list of the eventual Oscar nominees (plus one), which is just… ugh. Gawd, I hate the BFCA so much!
*yaaaaaaawn*
Aside from Emily Blunt and “Fox” popping up in Screenplay, not a lot to crow about.
The same titles continue to skate through the season.
Interesting pop-ups for Cotillard and Damon, though.
If Cotillard sticks to supporting, she could be lethal for a follow-up Oscar nod (nice work in “Public Enemies” makes it a one-two punch).
With the Actor race over-crowded, I guess they felt the urge to reward Damon somewhere. And, admittedly, he did make something out of nothing in “Invictus” (a thoroughly humdrum, largely clumsy, and aesthetically dull film of fleeting strengths that seems to be keeping afloat simply because it opened on a good freshness date and has the Eastwood brand name attached to it).
My two cents. Like I told a buddy, “If you see only one Nelson-Mandela-endorses-rugby-to-heal-a-nation movie this holiday season…”
My dream of a Sam Rockwell surge keeps dying hard. As do any hope of notices for “Sugar,” “Humpday,” or “Goodbye Solo.” But, oh, well, if the tiny, un-sexy arthouse crop started getting invited to the big dance, we’d be in, what, 1996 all over again? And that’s not good for anybody, ’cause nobody wants to live through the Spice Girls a second time.
So, I guess there’s no stopping the Sandra Bullock nomination, is there? Please? Can I hand-deliver copies of “Julia” to Academy doorsteps? Hell, even copies of “Away We Go”? No? Nothing? OK, then……
So The Proposal is funnier than In The Loop? And no A Prophet? I’m guessing that once again this is a critics group that haven’t watched films?
Precious is indeed nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay–there are also six nominees in this category.
@Bradley
A Prophet is not eligible since it wasn’t released in the USA so far.
Yeah, Precious is nominated for Screenplay according to Variety.
I shed a tear for Matt Damon in The Informant, such a shame..
And Helen Mirren missed for Best Actress! That’s a bit surprising, I would’ve thought she was on fairly safe ground with that performance, and the BFCA has six slots too.
Solid bunch of nominees, if a bit overly mainstream, but at least there are some interesting choices sprinkled throughout, like Fantastic Mr. Fox for screenplay and Where the Wild Things Are for costumes, score and song. A Serious Man feels like it kinda got the shaft though, especially for being a top ten film.
I hope the love for Inglourious Basterds can translate to the Oscars. I don’t think the Academy will love it as much as the BFCA did, but this is certainly encouraging.
I’m also glad the BFCA has five slots for visual effects. Those five nominees are undoubtedly deserving, and there were even more films than those five that had effects worthy of a Oscar-nom.
Avatar’s nominations for Art Direction and Cinematography are interesting too, considering the Academy’s traditionalist leanings when it comes to green-screen/digital creations and the thinking that when it’s done digitally it’s not “authentic”. I still feel very wary of whether or not it will be nominated for those, should be interesting to see if Avatar will be the one to “change that game”, so to speak.
One of the biggest snubs I only just noticed has to be Julie & Julia for Best Comedy! Maybe it wasn’t that much of a comedy, but still! Meryl Streep alone should’ve gotten it that nomination, especially over The Proposal (a serviceable, likeable rom-com but hardly something wildly memorable).
I’m thankful they recognize the brilliance of “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” and didn’t go for something like “9.” “Fantastic Mr. Fox” could steal it, but that’s wishful thinking. Slowly becoming my personal favorite animated flick of this year.
And as long as “Precious” wins best film…I’m happy.
Only a costume nod for Bright Star and Eastwood gets a mention. My only qualms with this list
“There is just one film on the list that ever felt truly questionable to me at some point along the way, and even that seems more and more locked in as latter-year hopefuls fail to catch expected fire.”
Translation: “I hate “Inglourious Basterds” from the bottom of my heart, but these darn critics still won’t listen to ME, KRIS TAPLEY!”
It’s not quite as over-the-top as Jeffrey Wells’ hatred of “Precious”, but it’s still very funny all the same.
They probably haven’t seen The Last Station yet. And of course they are trying to predict the Oscar nominees, just like they always did. In the last few years, their top 10 was always with the 10 most likely films to nab an Oscar nod.
For now I will just say that there were a lot of bad things about “Brothers,” but I concur, Bailee Madison was not one of them.
She was probably the best thing about the film, so I am happy to see her recognized.
Happy for Matt Damon, but it really should be for the Informant than Invictus, but I’ll take what I can get.
Good news for The lovely bones! I´m happy! jeje
Yeah, I’m very happy for the Nine, Invictus, & The Lovely Bones bumps.
They were needed in what’s been a fairly BORRRIINNGG awards season, so far.
And by the way, I happen to love BFCA.
I think they’re the perfect combination of Oscar and smaller critics awards (Oscars tend to be too Oscar whory, and smaller critics are wayyy too pretentious in their selections).
No Tilda Swinton, no Ben Foster and no mention of ‘The Messenger” out of a field of 10?
I’m a little sad to see the exclusion of Ponyo in the Animated Feature category. Personally I liked Miyazaki’s latest better than any of the five that made the cut.
Happy for Saoirse for double nomination. Hopefully she can continue the steam.
Bullock? not sure at all.
Am I the only one that thinks if you haven’t shortlisted Bright Star for cinematography then your entire ballot loses all credibility?
AdamL: You are not alone.
I haven’t seen Last Station or Young Victoria but if they wanted period drama why not go for Mirren istead of Blunt? Yeah, the obvious answer is they liked her more but, really?
Helen Mirren has missed out at a few major spots and Plummer continues to miss all over the place… fair to say they might not be the locks some people think? Really nice for McKay though, he’s still in the race for sure. Much like Mirren, Cruz seems to not be quite locked in yet either…
@AdamL: I could say the same thing about any Cinematography ballot that doesn’t include Antichrist or Thirst, but you don’t hear me crying about it. Or that there isn’t a Costume Design nod for Fantastic Mr. Fox. OK, now I am crying a little. :P
Frankly, I don’t find this list terribly boring, considering how some films have been faring so far this season. It’s reinforcing one trend (Avatar on the rise), it’s building the foundation for another rising trend (Inglourious Basterds needs to be taken seriously as a Best Picture contender), and putting new wind in the sails of films that have been looking bleak over the past few ceremonies (Nine finally makes a mark). Granted, it’s also the final nail in the coffin for a movie like Bright Star, and The Lovely Bones is looking less likely by the day. This is also a place where The Messenger could really start to make a mark, and I was surprised that it missed here, but I’m holding out hope. Perhaps the Globes would rectify this (doubtful), and maybe we’ll see a WGA nod. Only time will tell.
at this point it looks like Nine and Avatar are just gonna split all the tech awards here, and in March.
They have seen The Last Station. Go and check their site, it has 70 something score. So Helen Mirren is not that great in it, I presume.
It’s actually over 80, which makes her lack of nomination very odd.
Helen Mirren’s absence is very odd. I saw the film last week and I thought she was great in it. I think Emily Blunt is this year’s Kate Beckinsale—didn’t they nominate her for Nothing But the Truth??? WTF
I’m starting to agree, Guy, that Samantha Morton will receive an Oscar nomination. She’s one of those actors no one really ever expects to break through (awards-wise), but she always seems to nab that Oscar nom.
Starting to feel that Cruz is out, and they will reward Marion Cotillard in supporting (where she belongs), and will most likely be Mo’Nique’s biggest threat come Oscar night (Cotillard is MAGNIFICENT in Nine, too. Great, great performance).
GREAT NEWS for “Nine”! The nominees were kind of predictable. My Best Picture predictions are exactly the same as their nominees. Also, interesting to see Marion Cotillard getting nominated for SUPPORTING actress. Will the academy have her as lead or supporting? Will Penelope Cruz be nominated?
A cinematography nod for Avatar is VERY deserving, red_wine. When you consider the technology alone, I mean come on. There are considerable rigs being used to film this stuff. The rendering is only part of the process.
Kris, Cameron just said on the Today Show that 70% of ‘Avatar’ is CGI.
Knowing the Academy branches (and their fickleness; though, rightly so at times) … what do you think it’s chances are – then – of it really getting CIN, ART D, & Make-Up nods?
I never thought makeup was possible, though Richard Taylor’s designs shouldn’t be dismissed. But “70% CGI simply means 70% of the film involves CGI,” and that process began with the rigs used. So, again, it shouldn’t be dismissed.
All of that having been said, I don’t think Avater will be nominated for any of these awards. Art Direction is the most likely.
there Ten Best Picture nominations, is exactly what my Oscar BP prediction list has looked like for months. :D
I guess the credit crunch must have drastically reduced the number of movies that the Broadcast Critics watched but seriously WTF?
No Mirren/Cornish/Swinton but hello to Blunt?
Yeah, the bone thrown to Blunt is so odd given the buzz for Mirren/Cornish.
Must be a case of ‘while The Last Station’s BFCA score is high, not enough people saw it to vote’.
Nahhh, still sounds fishy/odd.
Either way you look at it, I assume that Mirren & Cornish were somewhere in the 7-9th place of votes. Just missed. Odd.
Maybe “The Last Station” is just a bad movie? Ever thought of that? Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott absolutely panned it on At the Movies last week.
@ Speaking English – even if the Venice Win was a fluke – How can anyone say that Blunt was better than Abbie Cornish (staying on period peices) ?
But, The Weinsteins, in their site, are promoting Cotillard as leading. Could she get a supporting role nomination at oscars ignoring that? I am not into the rules of the business. Check “View Categories” here:
http://twcawards.com/film/screenings/nine
Oh I’m not denying that. Cornish is extraordinary and it breaks my heart to see her being ignored like this. I’m just suggesting that maybe “The Last Station” isn’t going to be much of a contender this season, and that is why Mirren keeps missing.
Nel: What Venice win? You referring to Helen Mirren’s Rome win? Very different scales of prestige there.
@ Guy – Woops !! Of course I meant Rome.
well there goes Inglourious Basterds becoming a near lock, and that does look like our final 10, though I still feel NINE has a chance to drop out
Kris, like I’ve said before, A Christmas Carol has the same thing. The level of sophistication is different. Avatar is photo-real, A Christmas Carol is not. Other than that, they both of actors giving mo-cap performances in fully digitally created environments.
Production design I don’t mind because animated films are eligible for it(though god knows it never occurs to anyone to vote for them , last year Wall-E’s tremendous design of Axiom was ignored). But cinematography is capturing the play of light with a camera. What Avatar does is it adds all the backgrounds(entire Pandora basically) and lights it up inside the computer. It can manipulate light sources and even trajectories of light. That’s what animated films do. All CGI animated films too have a listed cinematographer.
I would hate it if the Academy starts whoring for the next big thing. They did not even nominate the last 2 LOTR movies because of their disdain for excessive digital tinkering(and those movies were not even created in a computer). Now we’ll probably see them break their own long standing beliefs to get a piece of the phenomenon of the moment.
Poor Helen Mirren. She never seems to be able to win any awards.
Blunt got a nomination because she’s great in the film. Most all of the reviews cite her outstanding performance, so I don’t understand how this nomination could be considered odd.
Honestly, almost everything I’ve read about Blunt was that she was serviceable, nice, and nothing special; same for the movie. Though, this type of movie is in my wheelhouse and I’m looking forward to it.